Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xm8r8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-06T21:31:19.858Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

From Captivity to Liberation: the Ideology and Practice of Franchise in Crusading France

from The Marjorie Chibnall Memorial Essay, 2017

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2018

Get access

Summary

In the spring of 1202, between 25 March and 14 April, Hugh of Candavène, Count of St-Pol, oversaw four separate, yet parallel, grants of franchise to four towns within his domains. In 1194, Hugh had become a direct vassal of the king of France, who endowed him with several fiefs in the territories between St-Pol and the royal domain in recognition of his faithful service (propter servicium). In the region of the Somme, where Hugh's new fiefs clustered, grants of franchise were not uncommon. From the beginning of the twelfth century semi-independent communes came to play an increasingly prominent, if often controversial, role in public debate and political life. As Charles Petit-Dutaillis, Robert Fossier, Susan Reynolds, Chris Wickham and others have shown, communes – that is, independent urban communities governed by a small group of échevins or prud'hommes and enjoying specific defined and delineated freedoms, customs, usages and regulations – developed differently at different moments in northern and southern Europe. Notoriously, during the twelfth century, as was the case in Laon, Beauvais, and Reims, grants of urban franchises could be revoked as often as they were confirmed, making the creation of a commune or an enfranchised ville potentially controversial. The grants contained the kernel of possible critique and dissent; the commune could be a site of resistance to, as much as respect for, local lordship.

By 1202, Hugh had been a vowed crusader for two years. As a seasoned crusader who had taken part in the Third Crusade and returned to the west in 1192, he emerged as one of the leaders of the Fourth Crusade. That spring he began the process of making a final tournée of his domains as he departed for the east. In the last days of March, Hugh and his wife, Countess Yolande, enfranchised the burghers of St-Pol-sur-Ternoise and their heirs and granted them a commune to exist in perpetuity (in perpetuum) according to the laws and customs of the commune of St-Quentin, which Hugh had established a decade earlier. Thus, St-Pol was given rights of self-governance in exchange for modest annual payments in kind and in recognition of his grant and his lordship.

Type
Chapter
Information
Anglo-Norman Studies XL
Proceedings of the battle conference 2017
, pp. 147 - 164
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×